I just did a bunch of Celtic based mugs that I carved 'knots' into.. having some fun with the Green!!
facebook gallery here:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=32212&id=1485764506&l=c88b6e06b3I started this project off with an idea I had that Celtic and Maori carving/design are similar, and that immigration and settlement of New Zeland from the Celtic Isls was the connection. But 'post' research did not dig up a lot of support. Here is some info off the net.
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Due to New Zea-land geographic isolation, 500 years passed (from Polynesian immigration) before the next phase of settlement, the arrival of Europeans. Only then did the original inhabitants need to distinguish themselves from the new arrivals, using the term "Mâori" which means "ordinary" or "indigenous".

The establishment of British colonies in Australia from 1788 and the boom in whaling and sealing in the Southern Ocean brought many Europeans and Americans to the vicinity of New . Some settled—for economic, religious or personal reasons.

European colonialism sent out a number of waves of migrants to New Zealand that left a deep legacy on the social and political structures of the Mâori.

Germany (forming the next biggest immigrant group after the British and Irish)

1852 only 15% of immigration was Irish.....Despite the small numbers of Irish in New Zealand in the 1840s, the islands were given Irish names. In a Royal Charter of 1840 the ‘Northern Island’ became New Ulster, the ‘Middle Island’ New Munster, and ‘Stewart’s Island’ New Zealand.

The New Zealand Company offered assisted passages to Zealand settlements in New Zealand. However, the company did not consider illiterate Irish peasants to be ‘desirable emigrants’.
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and with further comparison of the two styles, I did not see real similarity other then the interesting design of the Celtic "triskele"??
here is my favorite tapa design, which I've used with Shamrocks before on my tikis
loved to find it later in my Celtic research

So here is my take on indiginouse art and settlement influences.
This I know from my love of Hopi Kachina dolls...

first off it is now PC to call them Katsina Dolls because there is no 'ch' sound in the Hopi language...
then there is this...
Katsina dolls used to look like this before the 1920s
given to babies and small children at festival/ceremonies.
After the 1800s and the influx of the 'Tourist' trade, the dolls started to look like this.
by the 70s, when i was growing up, they looked like this. Many being made by the Navajos jumping in on the 'action'....
and now there are fantastic things like this being carved from mostly one piece of 'cottonwood root', the original sacred matterial of the child's toy.
Awesome!!
anyway... here is my question... did Eroupean carving
have a majior factor in what we now see out of New Zealand??
Maybe it was those German Clock carvers!? the tools, I'm sure, helped.

just seeing if there is any pics of the old Maori stuff... I got no books on it and the net did not seem to help.

History aside, there are a lot of old Irish legends and stories about explorers finding lost islands that are paradise on earth with exotic vegetation and beautiful women. The two stories that spring to mind are St Brendan and Bran.

The god of the sea, Manannan mac Lir, was said to be the guardian of the "Blessed Isles" which have never been exactly pinpointed (some say they are Macronesian but they could just as easily be Polynesian Isles). More on Manannan here

There are certainly folks here (including members of the carving fraternity) who believe in pre-Maori northern hemisphere settlers:
(link removed to avoid attracting the unhinged)
...however, being a reasonably logical thinker, and someone who has dedicated some serious hours of my life to book and museum study, I've yet to see anything convincing to support this theory (and I have read the book that site promotes). It's very easy to push agendas and build tenuous links when there is such a strong thread of commonality between the art forms of nearly every culture on the planet. To me it's very simple...we are all human, the human brain works in certain ways, and thus we are drawn to the same shapes, forms and symbols. Part of our study at rock school involved looking closely at the Mesoamerican, Chinese and Maori jade carving cultures and there is certainly plenty of crossover in terms of style and subject. The golden mean is another good example of these universal laws of design.

The example of Katsina art adapting to colonial influence is very similar to what happened here....but I need to gather a few stray pics to illustrate the process - so part 2 will have to follow....

(PS: my NZ side is totally Irish...from 2 of those "illiterate undesirable" families who landed in the 19th century, traced back to the ships and beyond...and I did dabble in knotwork in my very early carving days, before being distracted by the wealth of Pacific treasures around me )

Sorry for the delay, I'm having trouble finding pics of a couple of the earliest pieces in the puzzle. I haven't unpacked my books yet, otherwise I'd just scan what I need.
I removed my link to the CelticNZ site above too , as some unrelated recent web trawling led me to some interesting exchanges between local scientists and the lunatic fringe...and I'd rather not attract it to TC.
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Aloha and Ahoy,
Being a bit of a beach chair theorist, I often wonder about the Great Mysteries of Tiki ?...Like what exactly did the missionaries do with all that penius? (referring to the practice of tiki castration) for example...we'll save that discussion for later .

The question Al raises is worth looking into and discussing.
My personal belief is that there would definitely be some influence from european carving as far as techniques and tools and the way their items have changed, as for specific motifs and details certain things like the way a fern leaf unravels is simply found in nature, now I'm not certain but I would suggest that Ireland and New Zealand would have similar climates and perhaps similar plant life. It then only takes a carvers ability and willingness to create life influenced carvings based on his or her surroundings to bridge a gap.
Like the Katsina dolls morphing over time, so has other groups artworks, Here in Australia a sometimes sensitive area is the popularity of aboriginal dot paintings despite their relatively modern invention of course it is debated.

But there remains no doubt in my mind that europeans have had a major impact on every aspect of life in Oceania.

Now I know this is a lot of words....but I think it's relevant so bear with me and I'll end with a picture
This is an excerpt out of my favourite book "Oceanic Art" by Anthony JP Meyer, If you don't have it I reccomend getting it.ISBN 3-89508-080-2

" Curios For Trade"
"It is quite possible that the first curios made for sale to passing Europeans were Maori jade hei tiki. James Cook noticed that many more hei tiki were available for trade on his second and third voyages than on his first. A notable early trade in curios developed on Mangaia in the Cook islands, where the locals produced several types of ceremonial adze. The later models carved from about 1840 to the early 20th century, were huge clumsy affairs that bore no esthetic relation to the tradditional adze. The Austral Islands also turned commercial around the 1820's manufacturing vast numbers of large intricately decorated paddles in imitation of their smaller traditional ones. Copies of sacred figures have been in production on easter island since the early 1800's. In the Solomon Islands, naturalistic figures were carved for sale to visiting whalers and merchants. A flourishing trade later developed in New Guinea as the villages came into contact with the western world. Thousands of masks and figures are carved for sale as >airport art< and Asmat shields are now even made in Bali."

Al,, Very interesting stuff to stir the imagination more than it's stirred already.
Paipo, I Always Knew you had a good Up-bringin' "from 2 of those "illiterate undesirable" families" he said..
Everyone else We're All Lunatics but me...Haaa